Tsc Compassionate Leave Form Download
Zerihun Tanoesoedibjo
Family medical leave may be taken to provide care or support to certain family members and people who consider the employee to be like a family member in respect of whom a qualified health practitioner has issued a certificate indicating that they have a serious medical condition with a significant risk of death occurring within a period of 26 weeks. Family caregiver leave is another job-protected leave available under the Employment Standards Act, 2000 (ESA) for employees with certain relatives who have a serious medical condition. One of the main differences between family medical leave and family caregiver leave is that an employee may be eligible for family caregiver leave even if the family member who has a serious medical condition does not have a significant risk of death occurring within a period of 26 weeks. Employees may also be entitled to take critical illness leave to provide care or support to a minor child or adult who is a family member, whose baseline state of health has changed significantly and whose life is at risk from an illness or injury. Critical illness leave may be taken for up to 17 weeks to care for an adult, and up to 37 weeks to care for a minor child.
Note that if an employee has a certificate issued by a qualified health practitioner before January 1, 2018 to support their entitlement to family medical leave, then the rules for family medical leave before January 1, 2018 apply to that employee. What this means is that the employee with a pre-January 1, 2018 certificate would be entitled to take up to 8 weeks of family medical leave within a 26-week period, and would have to wait until that 26-week period was over to potentially become eligible for the 28-week period of leave.
There is no requirement that an employee be employed for a particular length of time, or that the employer employ a specified number of employees in order for the employee to qualify for family medical leave.
The right to take time off work under the family medical leave provisions of the ESA is not the same as the right to the payment of compassionate care benefits under the federal Employment Insurance Act. An employee may be entitled to family medical leave whether or not they have applied for or is qualified for the compassionate care benefits.
Family medical, sick, family responsibility, bereavement, declared emergency, family caregiver, critical illness, domestic or sexual violence, child death, and crime-related child disappearance are different types of leaves. For example, the purposes of the leaves, their length, the individuals with respect to whom they can be taken, and eligibility criteria are different.
The 28 weeks of a family medical leave do not have to be taken consecutively. An employee may therefore take a single week of leave at a time. However, if an employee only takes part of a week off work as family medical leave, it is still counted as a full week of leave.
That is because "week" is defined for family medical leave purposes as a period of seven consecutive days beginning on a Sunday and ending on a Saturday. Week is defined in this way to correspond with the beginning and end of the week set for EI entitlement purposes.
Note that the maximum length of family medical leave for an employee with a certificate issued by a qualified health practitioner before January 1, 2018 is eight weeks, to be taken within a period of 26 weeks.
If the employee stops providing care or support before the end of that week, the employee is entitled to be on leave until the end of the week, and they can return to work only if the employer agrees. (The agreement does not have to be in writing.)
Note: Prior to the amendments to the ESA that came into force on October 29, 2014, employees had the right to be on family medical leave only on days on which they provided care or support, and employers could not prevent an employee from returning to work during a week in which leave was taken.
Felicia works weekdays. She provides care or support to her dying mother on Wednesday and takes family medical leave to do it. The first day of the week that she is entitled to be on family medical leave is Wednesday. She is also entitled to be on family medical leave on Thursday and Friday even though she is not providing care or support on those days. She is able to return to work on Thursday and Friday only if she wants to and her employer agrees to let her. Felicia is considered to have used up one of her 28 weeks of family medical leave even though she was on leave for only part of the week.
The 28 weeks of family medical leave must be shared by all employees in Ontario who take a family medical leave under the ESA to provide care or support to a specified family member. For example, if one spouse took 18 weeks of family medical leave to care for their dying father, the other spouse would be able to take only 10 weeks of family medical leave. The spouses could take leave at the same time, or at different times.
If an employee qualifies for family medical leave, the employee may take up to 28 weeks within the 52-week period running from the beginning of the 26-week period stated in the certificate. If the family member does not pass away by the point that the 26-week period ends, the employee can remain on leave until all 28 weeks have been used up, and another medical certificate does not have to be issued with the 52-week period set by the certificate.
If an employee has taken a family medical leave to care for a family member who has not passed away within the 52-week period starting on the first day of the week in the 26-week period specified in the medical certificate, and a health practitioner issues another certificate stating that the family member has a serious medical condition with a significant risk of death within 26 weeks, the employee would be entitled to an additional 28-weeks of family medical leave.
If an employee has more than one specified family member who has a serious illness with a significant risk of death within a period of 26 weeks, the employee will be entitled to an 28 -week family medical leave for each of the specified family members.
If a qualified health practitioner issues a certificate stating that a specified family member has a serious medical condition and there is significant risk of death occurring within a period of 26 weeks, an employee must take the family medical leave within the 52-week period starting on the first day of the week the 26-week period begins.
Where two or more certificates are obtained by two or more employees wishing to take leave with respect to the same family member, the 52-week period within which the family medical leave must be taken is determined by whichever certificate was issued first.
"Week" is defined for the purposes of family medical leave as a period of seven consecutive days, beginning on a Sunday and ending on a Saturday. If the date indicated on the certificate is a day other than a Sunday, the 26 week period will run from the preceding Sunday. Likewise, regardless of what day of the week the employee actually begins the leave, the week of family medical leave would be considered to have begun on the preceding Sunday.
On Wednesday, June 13, a qualified health practitioner issues a certificate stating that Mohammed's spouse has a serious medical condition with a significant risk of death within a period of 26 weeks. Because a week is defined as a period of 7 consecutive days beginning on Sunday and ending on Saturday under the family medical leave provisions, the 26-week period is considered to begin Sunday June 10. Assuming Mohammed wished to commence the leave on the day the certificate was issued, the first week of the leave would be considered to have begun on Sunday June 10.
The employee does not have to have the medical certificate before they can start the leave, but a certificate must eventually be obtained. If a certificate is never issued, the employee will not be entitled to the leave. This means that the employee would not be entitled to any of the protections afforded to employees on family medical leave.
An employer is entitled to ask an employee for a copy of the certificate of the qualified health practitioner to provide proof that they are eligible for a family medical leave. The employee is required to provide the copy as soon as possible after the employer requests it. The certificate must name the family member and state that the family member has a serious medical condition with a significant risk of death occurring within a specified 26-week period. There is no requirement that the notice specify what the medical condition is; it need only state that it is serious and that there is a significant risk of death occurring within a 26-week period.
If an employee is applying for Employment Insurance (EI) compassionate care benefits, a copy of the medical certificate submitted to Employment and Social Development Canada may also be used for the purposes of supporting an entitlement to family medical leave.
For the purposes of family medical leave, a qualified health practitioner is a person who is qualified to practice medicine under the laws of the jurisdiction in which care or treatment of the family member is being provided. A qualified health practitioner can also be a nurse practitioner (a holder of an extended certificate of registration under the Nursing Act, 1991).
Boris is going to take 14 weeks of leave from January 30 to May 6, and another 14 weeks from August 28 to December 2. Boris is required to provide written notice to his employer of both periods of leave. He can do this by providing a single written notice that sets out the start dates of both periods of leave, or he can provide two separate notices, at the same or different times.
While an employee is required to tell the employer in advance that they are taking a leave (or, if this is not possible, as soon as possible after starting the leave), the employee will not lose the right to take family medical leave if the employee fails to do so. An employer may discipline an employee who does not properly inform the employer, but only if the reason for the discipline is the failure to properly notify the employer and not in any way because the employee took the leave.
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